Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge vs HTC One M9 – Metal Is The New VIP

At a time when most of the manufacturers were using polycarbonate to make the shells for their phones, Apple had a different vision. Aluminum became the predominant material on Apple’s iDevices, but their prices were and still are very high. In time, more companies ditched the cheap looking plastic and started making smartphone with metallic bodies. HTC’s first metallic flagship was One M8, and this year, new model hit the market. Samsung didn’t pay attention to the appearance of its phones and because of that, the sales were affected. The Galaxy S5 was criticized for the perforated dots from its back and Samsung realized that it was time for a change. So, the Galaxy S6 has that premium look that everyone was waiting, because the developers went back to the drawing board and created the phone from scratch.

Designs

Not much to say about the One M9, which looks almost identical to its predecessor. The body has the same form, being made of aluminum with curved edges and having a metallic frame (the Silver variant has a Rose Gold frame). Compared to the M8 model, he M9 has more angular edges for a better grip and the rear camera lens is square, not circular. The dimensions of the M9 are 144.6 x 69.7 x 9.6 mm, resulting in a weight of 157grams.

The Galaxy S6 features Corning Gorilla Glass 4 on both its front and back with a jewel-like effect, but for the first time, Samsung used a metallic frame on a Galaxy S flagship. The device looks amazing, it’s very thin (6.8mm), but it’s shorter at 143.1mm and lighter at 138grams. The color options for the back are Blue Topaz, Gold Platinum, White Pearl and Black Sapphire and the home button below the screen comes with an improved fingerprint scanner, which supports online payments through Samsung Pay.

Displays

Nothing has changed regarding One M9’s screen, because it uses the same technology from the previous model: Super LCD3. The size was kept at 5inches and the resolution is unchanged, meaning that you’ll settle for Full HD (1,920×1,080 pixels at 441ppi). The screen barely covers 87.1% of the sRGB color gamut, but it has a high level of brightness, reaching 478.50cd/m2.

The Galaxy S6 has a 5.1inches Super AMOLED screen with QHD resolution (1440 x 2560 pixels at 577 ppi), which is capable to cover 100% of the sRGB color gamut, but it offers more vibrant colors. Regarding the brightness, it reaches 341.09cd/m2, the contrast is perfect, and the blacks are deep.

Hardware

The Galaxy S6 is powered by an Exynos eight-core processor with two quad core processors clocked at 1.5GHz and 2.1GHz, which rely on a Mali-T760 GPU and 3GB of RAM. The One M9 uses Qualcomm’s 64bit Snapdragon 810 octa core processor with two quad core processors running at 1.5GHz and 2GHz, which are paired with Adreno 420 graphics and 3GB of RAM.

In BrowserMark had a score of 1,957, but the Galaxy S6 scored better at 2,753. In BaseMark OS II test, the One M9 obtained a score of 1,463, being again behind the Galaxy S6, which scored 1,643. In BaseMark X 1.1 graphics benchmarks, the S6 scored 31,157, defeating once again the One M9, which managed to score 28,074.

Samsung decided to remove not only the dust and water resistance, but the microSD card slot as well, so you’ll have to choose between the 32GB, 64GB or the 128GB variant. The only option for the One M9 is 32GB, and it supports expansion up to 128GB.

Batteries

The One m9 has a 2,840mAh battery which lasts over nine hours when playing videos with the brightness set to 170cd/m2. The Galaxy S6, with its 2,600mAh battery, lasts 13 hours and a half.

Cameras

If you remember the 4MP Ultrapixel from the back of the One M8, then you’ll see it again but on the front side of the new flagship. On the back was placed a 20MP sensor with a bright f/2.0 aperture, which teams up with other features such as dual-LED flash, automatic simultaneous video and image recording etc. Unfortunately, the HDR option produces bright and washed out areas, to compensate the lighter areas of shadow.

The Galaxy S6 has a 16MP main shooter with wider f/1.9 aperture lens, optical image stabilization, LED flash and HDR, but this option tends to produce darker images. The front camera is 5MP, replacing the 2MP snapper from the predecessor.